One-dimensional (1-D) and two-dimensional (2-D) bar codes are known, which are formed by a specific set of symbols. In particular, two-dimensional codes provide the capacity of storing large quantities of information compared with one-dimensional bar codes. Among 2-D bar codes QR codes are very common on the market, also because of the massive diffusion of portable smartphones or suchlike, such as tablets and phablets.
QR codes are typically used, as well as for tracing objects, also for providing complex multimedia contents by suitable applications for users. QR codes can be used to show a text to a user, to add contact information to a user's telephone, to open a webpage or compose a text message or an email. A user can also generate and print autonomously his/her own QR code encoding determinate information and can post it at various real environments and also virtually on webpages. Often, QR codes are used to store network or telecommunication addresses, such as for example in links to a particular URL resource on the Internet, or other network addresses.
Furthermore, QR codes can appear on magazines, newspapers, road signs, public transport, business cards and in general any object, real or virtual, that can appear to a person in the real world.
Users who have smartphones with a camera and a suitable software for reading QR codes can scan, that is, acquire optically, the image of a QR code and receive the information encoded therein. This data connection to physical objects is commonly called “hardlink” or “real world hyperlink”.
Document US-A-2011/283196 describes a web-based electronic RSVP service that allows the final user organizing an event to manage a list of guests for the event, to manage and organize the guests' RSVP replies, that is, whether or not they will be present at the event, to communicate with the guests before the event and communicate with the guests after the event. This RSVP service allows the guests to reply electronically to the RSVP requests by accessing a specific network address like a URL in a web browser. The service allows the guests to download and transmit information and other contents concerning the event, for example photos and videos, before, during or after the event. The service provides a personalization engine to allow the organizing final user to select a particular model of invitation card and to personalize it by adding personalization data such as photos, messages, colors. The service can be chosen by the organizing final user as part of a process for ordering invitations. In this case, guests can connect to the service using a web browser in order to send their replies. The replies and other data referring to the event can be accessible for the organizing final user and also for the guests. The service provides a webpage generation module to generate dynamically a series of RSVP webpages, defined as the RSVP website, in reply to the selection by the organizing final user of an RSVP option. The URL address connected to the RSVP website is generated dynamically and printed on the invitation cards sent to the guests and, in addition, can be transmitted directly by email to the guests. The URL address can be printed with alphanumerical characters on the back of the invitation card together with a QR code or other bar code format that can be scanned to connect to the RSVP website. Irrespective of how the guests connect to the RSVP website, that is, to the corresponding webpages, the guests themselves can access and modify various types of data of the event, for example information on the event, such as date, time and place, or can transmit photos and videos of the event, for example during or after the event, and send comments or other messages about the event. The organizing final user can also have the possibility of accessing data of the event and of modifying them. In particular, the organizing final user can select the RSVP service option and a URL is automatically generated for the RSVP website, or it is created manually by the organizing final user, for example by specifying a single URL that includes alphanumerical characters concerning the event. The invitation is displayed by the system for the organizing final user with the URL and/or QR code, with the possibility of modifying them or of removing the URL and/or the QR code. The guest can use the URL received or the QR code to connect to the RSVP website and give his/her reply. The users of the RSVP service can transmit photos, videos, comments and other data to the RSVP website before, during and after the event, transforming the RSVP website into a social network site for the specific event.
Consequently, limits and defects of this known RSVP service derive from a potential lack of confidentiality of the data and the possibility that they can be modified or integrated by guests with other information, text, messages, photos, videos, without any control by the organizing final user, in a most unwanted manner. In fact, one possible disadvantage of the RSVP service is that all the guests, and not only the organizing final user, can transmit informative content, text, messages, photos, videos or other multimedia contents to the RSVP website. Another disadvantage is the risk that identical URLs may be generated, and therefore the confidentiality of the data may be compromised if different users can access the same URL.
There is therefore a need to perfect a method and an apparatus to remotely display dynamic informative contents that can overcome at least one of the disadvantages of the state of the art.
Purpose of the present invention is to obtain a method and an apparatus to remotely display dynamic informative contents, in particular to present dynamic contents in reply to successive scannings of a QR code, which remains unchanged or static, and to cause said dynamic contents to be associated securely and univocally to a registered and authenticated user, that is, accredited to use at least the service of modifying contents.
The Applicant has devised, tested and embodied the present invention to obtain these and other purposes and advantages.
Unless otherwise defined, all the technical and scientific terms used here and hereafter have the same meaning as commonly understood by a person with ordinary experience in the field of the art to which the present invention belongs.